Good Things Festival returned to Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne) for a second year (6 December), treating Australia to another line-up of some of the best international bands in alternative music including A Day To Remember, Simple Creatures, Trivium, and the Australian debuts of Ice Nine Kills and Poppy.
This year, a notable point of difference in the line-up was the number of Australian bands who were featured prominently. This included Parkway Drive’s first time headlining an Australian touring festival, Violent Soho’s first live shows of the year and the highly anticipated and well-received placement of The Veronicas on an alternative music festival.The first performance of the day on the main stage saw the Australian debut of metal pop superstar, Poppy. A hefty early-bird crowd gathered to hear what the highly talked about new sensation had to offer. Poppy's metal-pop hybrid had chugging nu-metal riffs and impossible to resist pop choruses that get stuck in your head for days after, highlighted best in the final song 'I Disagree'.
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Everyone’s favourite festival ska band, Reel Big Fish brought their trademark bouncing and skanking discography playing ‘Everything Sucks’ and ‘Sell Out’ to get the day moving.
Reel Big Fish - image © Stephen Sloggett
Meanwhile, stage three was brimming with fans ready to catch the Australian debut of the horror-inspired madness of Ice Nine Kills. The band have been around for over a decade, but it was their fifth record released in 2018, ‘The Silver Scream’, that has taken the band to a new level of success.
Ice Nine Kills’ performance had the audience fixated with what they saw. Of course, the set list was an easy win with the too short, 45-minute set consisting mostly of songs from the latest album like ‘SAVAGES’ and ‘Stabbing In The Dark’ before fittingly ending with ‘IT Is The End'.
But it was everything else that happened on stage that made Ice Nine Kills the most thrilling performance of the day. For each song, vocalist Spencer Charnas ran backstage to change into a new costume: Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Pennywise. These cinematic costume changes were completed by the addition of an extra performer playing numerous roles throughout the set, including being ‘murdered’ live on stage by Charnas – who was in full Ghostface costume – during the ‘Scream’ inspired ‘Your Numbers Up’.
Ice Nine Kills - image © Stephen Sloggett
Every little detail made this performance brilliant, whether it was the sound bites taken from certain movies mimed by band members, the dedication to the costumes, props and make-up, or the theatrical pantomime by everyone on stage. Ice Nine Kills deserve a dedicated theatre run to make ‘The Silver Scream’ a full-scale, live-action musical. One of the most entertaining live shows of the year.
Some pessimistic people said The Veronicas were only added to the Good Things line-up as a publicity stunt. Well, if they were it worked. The crowd for The Veronicas was gigantic and the viral event for the wall of death during ‘Untouched’ seemed to be one of the most anticipated moments of the whole festival.
Frankly, it’s 12 years overdue that The Veronicas are part of a rock festival line-up; their 2007 album ‘Hook Me Up’ dipped into rock, pop-punk and had emo anthems for high schoolers across the country. Finally, Good Things Festival gave them the spot they deserved.
The backing band consisting of a bass, guitar and drums came on stage followed by the iconic duo as they headed straight into a turned up to 11 rock version of ‘Take Me On The Floor’. Distorted guitar, a heart-thudding bass and powerful drums made it clear the band belonged on this line-up. The set list consisted of Jessica Origliasso's metal screams, a cover of Blink 182’s ‘I Miss You’ and constant chants for a ‘wall of death’.
The Veronicas - image © Stephen Sloggett
The moment had finally arrived as Jessica commanded: “Please stand for the national anthem.” The band went into ‘Untouched’ and the first wall of death to The Veronicas was written into the history books.
After that, new-age metal veterans Trivium took over the main stage with an hour-long performance combining everything from 2017’s latest album ‘The Sin And The Sentence’ to 2005’s ‘Ascendancy’. Trivium can’t do anything wrong at this point; they’ve released quality albums consistently since 2003 and have this mammoth discography to choose from to keep any fan happy.
An hour wasn’t long enough and a national headline tour from the band would be received with open arms.
Trivium - image © Stephen Sloggett
Enter Shikari needed more space on stage three. Nearly each band member dove through the crowd at one point, while vocalist Rou Reynolds explored every corner of the stage by climbing or crawling. They crammed as much as they could into their set even doing their quickfire round, “where we play four songs in seven minutes,” Reynolds explained. It was a crazy seven minutes starting with ‘Sorry You’re Not a Winner’ and ending with ‘... Meltdown’.
“Sixty-two hours ago we were in the studio working on our next album,” Reynolds said. Although they say they were a little bit jet lagged, it didn’t show at all. The set ended with the same frantic energy that it started as the band performed the final song ‘Live Outside’. This saw Reynolds climb to the edge of the stage, getting tangled on Chris Batten’s keyboard and tipping it over with Reynolds not missing a lyric. “I'm so sorry, I spilt your drink mate,” Reynolds jokingly apologised to Batten later.
Enter Shikari - image © Stephen Sloggett
With big competition from Falling In Reverse and Simple Plan, The Beautiful Monument pulled in a dedicated crowd to the tucked away stage five. Their debut album, ‘I’m The Reaper’, saw the alt-rock band make a strong name for themselves and their live show built on this reputation. Heavy, anthemic choruses shown in their final song ‘Deceiver’ presents a band who have an exciting future ahead if they keep following this successful path.
Violent Soho were back with their first Australian shows of 2019, and their first Melbourne show in three years. Apart from the exciting taste of new music in single ‘Vacation Forever’ – performed live for the very first time – it was business as usual for the four-piece. They’ve been sorely missed and the roaring response from the crowd proved Australia is ready for the next chapter of Violent Soho.
Violent Soho - image © Stephen Sloggett
A Day To Remember didn’t give anyone a chance to move once Violent Soho had finished. The intro to ‘The Downfall Of Us All’ roared like a siren screaming across the festival with people running from all directions straight into the mosh. It was a throwback to the heavy days as A Day To Remember went into ‘All I Want’, ‘2nd Sucks’, ‘Paranoia’ as well as performing 2011’s ‘Sticks & Bricks’ for the first time live in Australia.
A Day To Remember - image © Stephen Sloggett
“You guys know A Day To Remember is playing right?” said blink-182’s Mark Hoppus to the surprisingly small crowd on stage three. Simple Creatures, the brand new project by Mark and Alex Gaskarth (All Time Low) is a danceable new pop sound from the king and prince of pop-punk.
“Normally I play in a band called plus 44 and Alex plays in a blink-182 cover band,” Hoppus joked. Together they’ve made catchy pop anthems that aren’t anything like their usual offering. Simple Creatures cemented this new project with the second EP ‘Everything Opposite’ in October this year, featuring tracks that quickly became favourites such as ‘One Little Lie’, ‘Special’ and ‘Thanks, I Hate It’.
The energy on stage was contagious as both members were obviously having an amazing time performing something new, even throwing in a cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’. Simple Creatures highlights the best from Gaskarth’s vocals – which always thrived in the more pop-sounding All Time Low songs – and the duo's ability to write the catchiest pop-punk anthems in history.
Hopefully, this means more Simple Creatures in the near future – the performance was one of the most enjoyable and funniest of the day.
Simple Creatures - image © Stephen Sloggett
Good Things was Parkway Drive’s first time headlining an Australian touring festival. Their most recent albums ‘Ire’ (2016) and ‘Reverence’ (2018) have seen Parkway ascend to new heights and headline major European Festivals; this was their first chance to show this festival performance to Australia.
To do this, they pulled out everything in their arsenal using every kind pyrotechnic on offer to set fire to the stage. Songs from ‘Reverence’ like ‘Absolute Power’ felt like they were made for festivals of this size as the clunking bass rung through the crowd in anticipation while songs from back in the day (like the opening guitar riff of ‘Idols and Anchors’) was echoed by the crowd in a chorus of ‘ohs’.
A string quartet joined the band for ‘Writings On The Wall’ and ‘Shadow Boxing’ making it feel like a cinematic orchestra behind the band. Drummer, Ben Gordon performed without missing a beat while he was rotated upside down and the stage was engulfed in flames during ‘Crushed’.
Parkway Drive - image © Stephen Sloggett
Finishing the night with ‘Bottom Feeder’, flames engulfed the sky on either side of the stage and surprisingly behind the audience in the middle of the venue, met by a series of unexpected screams. Parkway Drive cemented their status as headliners and proved they are stadium juggernauts who can handle stages of any size. They not only belong at this level, they thrive at this level.
Good Things Festival provided one of the biggest and most refreshing line-ups of the year by mixing Australian favourites with some of the best international bands going around. Good Things is quickly becoming the must-attend festival of the year. Let’s see what they do in 2020.
